Epic buys Rocket League developer Psyonix, will stop selling the game on Steam

I can't buy Half Life on anything other than Steam. Are you going to bash Steam for limiting customer choice because they only release titles they own on their own platform? Overwatch, WoW, and Diablo are Battle.net exclusives. Are you going to bash Blizzard? So is this really about consumer choice or just your preference for Steam?

I never said Valve was perfect either, but they have never reached out to purposefully cancel or limit consumers choice that existed before. They have never bribed a vendor tonöimit them to just their store. Titles on Steam are frequently availablenin many alternate stores.

Would it be nice if every store had the option of carrying every title? Certainly! I would LOVE this, but in the end Steam is the lesser evil here.
 
I never said Valve was perfect either, but they have never reached out to purposefully cancel or limit consumers choice that existed before. They have never bribed a vendor tonöimit them to just their store. Titles on Steam are frequently availablenin many alternate stores.

Would it be nice if every store had the option of carrying every title? Certainly! I would LOVE this, but in the end Steam is the lesser evil here.

Fair enough I guess.

I think something else nobody really talks about is Sony removing all digital purchases for PlayStation from all other vendors. So basically you pay their price all the time because it's the only place you can get it.
 
I never said Valve was perfect either, but they have never reached out to purposefully cancel or limit consumers choice that existed before. They have never bribed a vendor tonöimit them to just their store. Titles on Steam are frequently availablenin many alternate stores.

Would it be nice if every store had the option of carrying every title? Certainly! I would LOVE this, but in the end Steam is the lesser evil here.
give it til the end of the year i think the hype will die down and epic won't be able to or have the need for exclusive content anymore. personally i'd like to see both platforms co-exist(without the exclusive bs) because it opens more doors for more independent studios to release games and less reliance on the EA/activision/blizzard.
 
I never said Valve was perfect either, but they have never reached out to purposefully cancel or limit consumers choice that existed before. They have never bribed a vendor tonöimit them to just their store. Titles on Steam are frequently availablenin many alternate stores.

Would it be nice if every store had the option of carrying every title? Certainly! I would LOVE this, but in the end Steam is the lesser evil here.

Steam does not allow anyone selling on Steam to sell their games for cheaper on other platforms. And it's not like Epic or Steam are forcing developers to only sell on their platforms. Developers are willingly making these deals with Epic and Valve because it's a good deal for them. Epic and Valve aren't forcing anything. Psionix wasn't forced into selling themselves, they wanted to be bought.

The negative for you is you have to use a different launcher. It's really not a big deal and far from a "cancer on the industry". They're pouring tons of money into the industry. Even the developers not making special deals get much more money selling on Epic. They'll have higher margins so they can put more money into development.

If developers get more money they can make more games, add more to games than they didn't have in the budget before, make niche games that wouldn't have made enough money, or just sell their games for cheaper. If that money went to Valve instead it's not going to be nearly as beneficial to gamers. They would probably just put it towards developing more ways for children to gamble and a paid mods store.
 
The harder they squeeze the more the sand slips through their fingers.

Still wouldn't wanna be whistling dixie on Alderan.

I'm sort of hoping Valve decides to announce some actual good new Valve games... and perhaps hell why not a few Valve exclusives. Yes yes Epic has a ton of new found money... but Valve hasn't exactly been making peanuts the last number of years. Something tells me if Valve fought back Epic would soon turn in to the MS of the Valve V Epic store battle. Fold their cards and hold on to their profits lest shareholders replace heads.

Steam does not allow anyone selling on Steam to sell their games for cheaper on other platforms. And it's not like Epic or Steam are forcing developers to only sell on their platforms. Developers are willingly making these deals with Epic and Valve because it's a good deal for them. Epic and Valve aren't forcing anything. Psionix wasn't forced into selling themselves, they wanted to be bought.

The negative for you is you have to use a different launcher. It's really not a big deal and far from a "cancer on the industry". They're pouring tons of money into the industry. Even the developers not making special deals get much more money selling on Epic. They'll have higher margins so they can put more money into development.

If developers get more money they can make more games, add more to games than they didn't have in the budget before, make niche games that wouldn't have made enough money, or just sell their games for cheaper. If that money went to Valve instead it's not going to be nearly as beneficial to gamers. They would probably just put it towards developing more ways for children to gamble and a paid mods store.

I don't believe Epics numbers about making more money on their service cause they charge less. There are many more considerations when choosing a vendor then something as simple as commission rate. Companies going exclusive are paid off >.< Didn't the phoenix point developers just recently say they considered the ton of lost sales from going exclusive but in the end... who can turn down guaranteed money = to your sales projections. lol

If vendor A can sell you 1000 units at 80% profit... and vendor B can sell you 10,000 units at 70% profit. You would be really really stupid to go exclusive with A... Unless A said hey we will guarantee you are paid for a min of 10,000 units.

Epic exclusive play is perhaps smart on their end as they have a terrible after though store that had zero and still has close to zero mind share. No game outside the biggest AAAs are going to sell well going exclusive with Epic today. Epic is betting that by guaranteeing min sales targets they will attract enough talent that after a few years those guarantees will cost them almost nothing.

The catch as I see it... as soon as Epics store starts attracting as many sales dollars and there exclusive companies start seeing sales that better their Min guarantees. Their Cut is going to go up for all but their biggest AAA supporters. (Valve is no different they charges the big boys less as well) For PC gamers though its going to mean less value as Epic will not even bother trying to replicate half of steams features, Never mind things like Linux and Mac support. Steam like it or not is the wal mart of digital stores right now... sure you won't get a good % as a wall mart supplier, but your product will move by the skid load.
 
I never said Valve was perfect either, but they have never reached out to purposefully cancel or limit consumers choice that existed before. They have never bribed a vendor tonöimit them to just their store. Titles on Steam are frequently availablenin many alternate stores.

Would it be nice if every store had the option of carrying every title? Certainly! I would LOVE this, but in the end Steam is the lesser evil here.

Epic bought this studio. Did Valve put L4D, CS, DOTA 2, Portal (and pretty much everything aside from Half Life) onto another client after they bought those studios out? No. Same deal here.

Now Rocket League was indeed sold on Steam for a few years and it will stop being sold there so it is a bit different from that aspect but isn't unexpected. I assume if EA or Blizzard bought them out it would the same deal. Or if Valve bought a studio out that sold on EGS I assume they'd force them to tie their games exclusively to Steam.
 
Still wouldn't wanna be whistling dixie on Alderan.

I'm sort of hoping Valve decides to announce some actual good new Valve games... and perhaps hell why not a few Valve exclusives. Yes yes Epic has a ton of new found money... but Valve hasn't exactly been making peanuts the last number of years. Something tells me if Valve fought back Epic would soon turn in to the MS of the Valve V Epic store battle. Fold their cards and hold on to their profits lest shareholders replace heads.



I don't believe Epics numbers about making more money on their service cause they charge less. There are many more considerations when choosing a vendor then something as simple as commission rate. Companies going exclusive are paid off >.< Didn't the phoenix point developers just recently say they considered the ton of lost sales from going exclusive but in the end... who can turn down guaranteed money = to your sales projections. lol

If vendor A can sell you 1000 units at 80% profit... and vendor B can sell you 10,000 units at 70% profit. You would be really really stupid to go exclusive with A... Unless A said hey we will guarantee you are paid for a min of 10,000 units.

Epic exclusive play is perhaps smart on their end as they have a terrible after though store that had zero and still has close to zero mind share. No game outside the biggest AAAs are going to sell well going exclusive with Epic today. Epic is betting that by guaranteeing min sales targets they will attract enough talent that after a few years those guarantees will cost them almost nothing.

The catch as I see it... as soon as Epics store starts attracting as many sales dollars and there exclusive companies start seeing sales that better their Min guarantees. Their Cut is going to go up for all but their biggest AAA supporters. (Valve is no different they charges the big boys less as well) For PC gamers though its going to mean less value as Epic will not even bother trying to replicate half of steams features, Never mind things like Linux and Mac support. Steam like it or not is the wal mart of digital stores right now... sure you won't get a good % as a wall mart supplier, but your product will move by the skid load.

They already revealed their store feature roadmap which basically includes all the features steam has. Which they will need if Steam matches their pricing for developers. They claim the higher developer cuts are permanent. That isn't going to change unless Steam dies off and EGS becomes the new Steam. Even then it likely wouldn't because of how cheap and easy it's become to sell games yourselves. Right now Epic has a "only good games on the store" policy so they're limiting it to developers that have proven themselves which are the ones that could afford to sell games themselves. Maybe if they add a new store section for armature developers like Steam's Green Light program they would charge a higher percentage, but I don't see the rates getting worse for any real developers. If Steam actually matches Epic's rates they'll probably get even better for developers.
 
So... what does this mean for us that own Rocket League and play it on Linux through Steam? Are they going to remove the game from Steam who already own the game? Cause that's fucked up. Makes piracy look legal in comparison.
 
So... what does this mean for us that own Rocket League and play it on Linux through Steam? Are they going to remove the game from Steam who already own the game? Cause that's fucked up. Makes piracy look legal in comparison.

Believe they have stated they will continue to support steam purchases just stop offering it via steam.

I hope ala LOL vs Dota... valve puts some resources into a car game. I mean RL proves the formula is popular. Perhaps its time for a another large esport style car game. lol
 
Epic is going full bore investing every penny they get from fortnite into attempting to build the epic store and kill the rivals.

Yet they simultaneously said they wouldn't build up the epic UI to match steam.

Is there really nobody working for Epic who understands the social reasons why most people prefer Steam?
Looking forward to Epic Store Linux compatibility....:ROFLMAO::D
 
They already revealed their store feature roadmap which basically includes all the features steam has. Which they will need if Steam matches their pricing for developers. They claim the higher developer cuts are permanent. That isn't going to change unless Steam dies off and EGS becomes the new Steam. Even then it likely wouldn't because of how cheap and easy it's become to sell games yourselves. Right now Epic has a "only good games on the store" policy so they're limiting it to developers that have proven themselves which are the ones that could afford to sell games themselves. Maybe if they add a new store section for armature developers like Steam's Green Light program they would charge a higher percentage, but I don't see the rates getting worse for any real developers. If Steam actually matches Epic's rates they'll probably get even better for developers.

Well if your trying to attract customers you don't talk about future price hikes. For a company to say their rates will never change is disingenuous.

As far as being cheaper to sell direct... sure that has never not been true. If you make tshirts its cheaper to sell them yourself but you'll still make more money selling 1000x more every day with your wal mart contract.

Like it or not steam is the first and often ONLY place a lot of the market is willing to deal with. I buy a bunch of junk via Amazon that I (and the majority of other sane people) would never buy direct through some fly by night website setup by a mfg. Of course Epic is a step up from that which is why they charge a %... still right now Epic is not Steam. They lack features... and more importantly they haven't proven to me or anyone else that they will be around in 2 years. Steam has a much higher consumer confidence and YES they deserve to get paid for that. Epic is charging less because their product has less value.
 
I actually would prefer Epic not build up their game store/launcher to try to match Steam, so that it doesn't get huge with bloat and get in the way of me playing the game. I prefer GOG, because i can just download the installer and avoid any required front end to play the game. Origin is annoying because I have to log into it in order to start up a game that I do not plan on playing online (and for whatever reason it seems to lose my previous login information almost weekly, which is even more annoying). I do not think I have actually used the Epic nor the Uplay launchers. I think I installed them, got the free game they were giving away, and then have ignored them.
I love Steam because it is where a lot of my games library now exists, it provides me the ability to play many of those games in Linux very simply, and their "Steam Sales" of years past helped me amass a library so big that I do not know if I will ever complete everything. I also like the Steam Workshop, which has a pretty decent modding community. Other than that, Steam is just another thing getting in my way so that I can play a game.
 
Valve doesn't need to innovate since it's primarily been just a game store for the last ten years or more. The could start making games again, but there is simply no reason to. They aren't going cave to EGS because the exclusives will eventually show up on Steam.
It is the lack of innovation in and adoption of the Source Engine that is going to hurt them here. Epic is providing Unreal Engine to the developers for free, along with a royalty on sales for games using the engine. Unreal engine can be used on PC as well as consoles and mobile devices, which would definitely make things easier in the days of trying to be multiplatform.
Valve has Source 2 as their latest engine, but no one other than them seem to be using it. Cannot show it off when the only games using it seem to be a port, and a game that was widely panned.
While i do not like the tactics, as a developer it would be hard to choose someone who is going to take a higher % share of sales over someone who is going to take a lower % share of sales, plus if i use their debate-ably more modern engine, i get additional royalties.
Epic has leveraged their engine as a sales tactic. Valve has not.
 
Yes, people that aren't blinded by irrational hatred.
More people play Fortnite than even use Steam.
That 250 million number Tim Smarmy spouted earlier this year? Did he ever give an actual active player count? Because you have been able to and still can create an Epic account with no e-mail verification. This has been pointed out as a serious problem several times over the years. It's no different than bot farms on social media sites like Twitter and Instagram.
 
That 250 million number Tim Smarmy spouted earlier this year? Did he ever give an actual active player count? Because you have been able to and still can create an Epic account with no e-mail verification. This has been pointed out as a serious problem several times over the years. It's no different than bot farms on social media sites like Twitter and Instagram.

Like doesn't WoW have 700million accounts but only me and maybe 10 other people play still lol.
 
Like doesn't WoW have 700million accounts but only me and maybe 10 other people play still lol.
Ja, if we're going by that metric Valve just revealed today that Steam has broken 1 billion accounts, but they also included the monthly and daily actual active user volume of 90 million and 47 million respectively.
 
Well if your trying to attract customers you don't talk about future price hikes. For a company to say their rates will never change is disingenuous.

As far as being cheaper to sell direct... sure that has never not been true. If you make tshirts its cheaper to sell them yourself but you'll still make more money selling 1000x more every day with your wal mart contract.

Like it or not steam is the first and often ONLY place a lot of the market is willing to deal with. I buy a bunch of junk via Amazon that I (and the majority of other sane people) would never buy direct through some fly by night website setup by a mfg. Of course Epic is a step up from that which is why they charge a %... still right now Epic is not Steam. They lack features... and more importantly they haven't proven to me or anyone else that they will be around in 2 years. Steam has a much higher consumer confidence and YES they deserve to get paid for that. Epic is charging less because their product has less value.


War Thunder, Paladins, Black Desert Online, and many more games first sold directly then a few months later started selling on Steam. They get 100% of a lot more sales and make a lot more money, then sell on Steam later and still get those customers. They can do that because setting up an online store and selling is extremely cheap and easy.

Epic is taking less cut to attract more developers but also because they still make plenty of money from it.

The only reason steam takes 30% is because they're essentially a monopoly.

If there was actual competition the percentage the stores take would be even lower than what Epic is offering.

Steam is going to wait as long as they can to match Epic so they can continue take in more profits. Even if they matched Epic now they wouldn't stop them from growing into a competitor because of the exclusive deals they're making.
 
War Thunder, Paladins, Black Desert Online, and many more games first sold directly then a few months later started selling on Steam. They get 100% of a lot more sales and make a lot more money, then sell on Steam later and still get those customers. They can do that because setting up an online store and selling is extremely cheap and easy.

Epic is taking less cut to attract more developers but also because they still make plenty of money from it.

The only reason steam takes 30% is because they're essentially a monopoly.

If there was actual competition the percentage the stores take would be even lower than what Epic is offering.

Steam is going to wait as long as they can to match Epic so they can continue take in more profits. Even if they matched Epic now they wouldn't stop them from growing into a competitor because of the exclusive deals they're making.

30% is still 30% less then what it costs to sell in brick and morter. No setting up a good digital platform is not easy or everyone would have been in on it when steam was... and all the publisher stores would have attracted third parties. Its not as easy a business as Epic would have their investors believe. My crystal ball says they loose money for the 2 years they have planned to.... then another year, then jack their % when their investors start getting a bit worried all their Fortnight money is getting burned up in a vain attempt to be Nouveau Steam. A year after that they exit leaving most developers holding the bag and paying to provide customers with steam codes.

I could be wrong and in 2 years we have 2 viable healthy stores... the coke and pepsi of digital game distribution. I doubt it but who knows perhaps Tenacent and Disney are willing to loose money for a lot longer then I would expect.
 
They're probably going to make it free to play.

Yeah, This is actually a solid idea on their part. Rocket League was addictively fun and anyone who was going to buy a copy already owns one. The game already has tons of cosmetics. If Epic can introduce this to their fortnite playerbase, with a cash shop, they could be in for another billion dollar idea.
 
...and who don't buy games.

That's what Sweeney can't seem to understand.

Epic is making obscene amounts of money with Fortnite. So much so they managed to release Steams first real competitor and pay off publishers for exclusives on a whim.

I hate Epic for their shady practices, but they've certainly figured out that people will spend Billions on virtual silly hats, even if they don't buy games.

I don't like it anymore than you, but at the rate they are going Epic is going to become a major Steam rival. The rate they are poaching titles gamers actually want to play is incredible.
 
I can't buy Half Life on anything other than Steam. Are you going to bash Steam for limiting customer choice because they only release titles they own on their own platform? Overwatch, WoW, and Diablo are Battle.net exclusives. Are you going to bash Blizzard? So is this really about consumer choice or just your preference for Steam?
Different day, same non-argument. You do know the difference between 1st party and 3rd party, right?
 
30% is still 30% less then what it costs to sell in brick and morter. No setting up a good digital platform is not easy or everyone would have been in on it when steam was... and all the publisher stores would have attracted third parties. Its not as easy a business as Epic would have their investors believe. My crystal ball says they loose money for the 2 years they have planned to.... then another year, then jack their % when their investors start getting a bit worried all their Fortnight money is getting burned up in a vain attempt to be Nouveau Steam. A year after that they exit leaving most developers holding the bag and paying to provide customers with steam codes.

I could be wrong and in 2 years we have 2 viable healthy stores... the coke and pepsi of digital game distribution. I doubt it but who knows perhaps Tenacent and Disney are willing to loose money for a lot longer then I would expect.

It doesn't matter how hard it was 15 years ago. What matters is how easy it is now.

Epic is a privately owned company just like Valve, and Tencent has a minority stake in Epic. They don't really make any decisions for Epic. Epic originally made a deal with them so they could afford to make Unreal Engine free to use and cheaper to license so it would become more popular and they could make more money long term. The very reason Tencent invested in Epic is for long term growth and that's exactly what the Epic game store's purpose is. It's definitely going to be around 2 years from now.
 
First party exclusives aren't the issue.

THe issue is the fact they are poaching games that have already been selling on Steam, and with those games getting "ripped" out of steam, we lose access to DLC, Workshop support, etc.

Epic still doesn't have the features that are now seen as a necessity in a gaming client, such as game reviews, etc
 
It doesn't matter how hard it was 15 years ago. What matters is how easy it is now.
Which is why it's even more inexcusable that EGS launch a client so half baked, and it's not much better today. Valve already did the heavy lifting, all Epic had to do was copy their homework. For starters, Epic could've hired out a way more professionally done storefront for around $10K than the mess they have today.
 
You do realize that Epic just bought the studio making it a defacto 1st party title, right?
The whole argument is about epic using their wealth in a way that negatively impacts players. Buying the whole studio is the ultimate buying of exclusives don't you think? You're arguing semantics here.

And BTW my definition of a first party title is one that was developed under epic's umbrella. So if this studio makes a new game after being acquired by epic that game would qualify as first party, but not their entire library they made before that.

For example if you sign a writer to your publishing house that doesn't give you the publishing rights for all his previous books, only the ones he's yet to publish.
 
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Which is why it's even more inexcusable that EGS launch a client so half baked, and it's not much better today. Valve already did the heavy lifting, all Epic had to do was copy their homework. For starters, Epic could've hired out a way more professionally done storefront for around $10K than the mess they have today.

There aren't any features missing that would stop any reasonable person from buying a game. They launched with the essentials and are adding the nice to have features later. The store is literally only months old. You can't just magically poof out all the features Steam has developed over 15 years in a few months by hiring more people. This is all software business 101 stuff.
You have an extremely strong opinion for something you know very little about.
 
...and who don't buy games.

That's what Sweeney can't seem to understand.

Yet somehow has made billions for Epic.

Was DOTA 2 a flop because it was designed for kids that don't pay anything when Steam was originally centered around high quality, full price AAA games? Of course not. You can buy anything from flight simulators to "goat simulators" on Steam and every game does just fine.

War Thunder, Paladins, Black Desert Online, and many more games first sold directly then a few months later started selling on Steam. They get 100% of a lot more sales and make a lot more money, then sell on Steam later and still get those customers. They can do that because setting up an online store and selling is extremely cheap and easy.

Steam versions of games typically get the shaft but it is understandable. Typically they do it for exposure and everyone migrated off. See DCS for example. Typically the sale prices are cheaper and more frequent on their own store so I buy there instead.

Different day, same non-argument. You do know the difference between 1st party and 3rd party, right?

So what about developers that limit their game to Steam only?

The whole argument is about epic using their wealth in a way that negatively impacts players. Buying the whole studio is the ultimate buying of exclusives don't you think? You're arguing semantics here.

That isn't semantics, it is entirely different. They're apart of Epic now. Vastly different from telling a developer to only sell on platform X instead of Y.

Same deal with Counter Strike, DOTA 2, Portal and Left 4 Dead and (everything else by Valve aside from Half Life). All independent studios and games bought out by Valve who turned around and limited their games to Steam only. Except this wasn't a problem until the internet decided it was ~3 months ago.

Did they sign a deal, that gives them monetary benefits in exchange for not publishing their game on other marketplaces?

Would epic even allow games on their store that are also available on steam?

First part is irrelevant if you're talking about consumer choice/benefit. But yes, Steam gave monetary benefits for selling games on their market place. This is well known and the whole reason it became so popular. The developers got a pretty damn good deal. Obviously they don't restrict developers from selling their games elsewhere unless Valve bought the studio out. Same deal with Epic though.

Epic does allow games on their store to be available on Steam. They just won't sell their first party games there, much like Valve, EA and Blizzard. Ubisoft seems to be the outlier here and why they haven't gone Uplay exclusive is something I don't understand. Not that I am complaining, having a Steam option was nice.
 
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So what about developers that limit their game to Steam only?
Did they sign a deal, that gives them monetary benefits in exchange for not publishing their game on other marketplaces?

Would epic even allow games on their store that are also available on steam?
 
Did they sign a deal, that gives them monetary benefits in exchange for not publishing their game on other marketplaces?

Would epic even allow games on their store that are also available on steam?

They already do. There are games being sold on both now.
 
Yet somehow has made billions for Epic.

Was DOTA 2 a flop because it was designed for kids that don't pay anything when Steam was originally centered around high quality, full price AAA games? Of course not. You can buy anything from flight simulators to "goat simulators" on Steam and every game does just fine.



Steam versions of games typically get the shaft but it is understandable. Typically they do it for exposure and everyone migrated off. See DCS for example. Typically the sale prices are cheaper and more frequent on their own store so I buy there instead.



So what about developers that limit their game to Steam only?



That isn't semantics, it is entirely different. They're apart of Epic now. Vastly different from telling a developer to only sell on platform X instead of Y.

Same deal with Counter Strike, DOTA 2, Portal and Left 4 Dead and (everything else by Valve aside from Half Life). All independent studios and games bought out by Valve who turned around and limited their games to Steam only. Except this wasn't a problem until the internet decided it was ~3 months ago.



First part is irrelevant if you're talking about consumer choice/benefit. But yes, Steam gave monetary benefits for selling games on their market place. This is well known and the whole reason it became so popular. The developers got a pretty damn good deal. Obviously they don't restrict developers from selling their games elsewhere unless Valve bought the studio out. Same deal with Epic though.

Epic does allow games on their store to be available on Steam. They just won't sell their first party games there, much like Valve, EA and Blizzard. Ubisoft seems to be the outlier here and why they haven't gone Uplay exclusive is something I don't understand. Not that I am complaining, having a Steam option was nice.

WTF are you doing replying by editing into a previous post?
 
It doesn't matter how hard it was 15 years ago. What matters is how easy it is now.

Epic is a privately owned company just like Valve, and Tencent has a minority stake in Epic. They don't really make any decisions for Epic. Epic originally made a deal with them so they could afford to make Unreal Engine free to use and cheaper to license so it would become more popular and they could make more money long term. The very reason Tencent invested in Epic is for long term growth and that's exactly what the Epic game store's purpose is. It's definitely going to be around 2 years from now.

Yes they have said it will be 2 years of losses for sure. I'm just saying Epic has basically sold just under 50% of their company to Chinese interests and Disney. They are not going to be happy with loosing money past that. Do they have a say as if they where public no... still if they get sick of loosing money after 3 or 4 years Epic will change gears.

And for the record even today its not easy to run a digital distrbution store with 1000s of GBs in bandwidth every hour all over the global. It just isn't. Its not easier today then it was... easier to convince customers to use it yes. If anything though its more expensive to scale up as the market now means you go from zero to having to pay of ISPs instantly.
 
Yes they have said it will be 2 years of losses for sure. I'm just saying Epic has basically sold just under 50% of their company to Chinese interests and Disney. They are not going to be happy with loosing money past that. Do they have a say as if they where public no... still if they get sick of loosing money after 3 or 4 years Epic will change gears.

And for the record even today its not easy to run a digital distrbution store with 1000s of GBs in bandwidth every hour all over the global. It just isn't. Its not easier today then it was... easier to convince customers to use it yes. If anything though its more expensive to scale up as the market now means you go from zero to having to pay of ISPs instantly.

It's literally being done by the games I listed and many more.
 
It's literally being done by the games I listed and many more.

There is a difference between distributing your one game... and 10 thousand and all their DLCs and patch downloads, all while providing DRM services to publishers.

If it was easy steam would have tons of competition. Which they really don't. I do hope Epic can produce a competing product I do... I just wish they would stop BSing end users about their cut being more fair. It would be like target publicly panning wal mart for bad supplier deals. (and perhaps its more like when small local stores complain about the walmarts and targets and their volume purchases) They can also take the exclusive crap and shove it. I get they want to get out to speed as fast as possible... I just can't get behind an exclusive war. And it will become a war no doubt... Valve isn't going to return right away, they don't have to. But if things go the way Sweeney envisions and the Epic store is looking at profits in a couple years. I would expect the Valve response at that point would be to fire back with a few exclusives and force Epic to loose money for longer then they planned. Pretty much what Sony did to MS.... let them think their loosing money strategy is working before firing back at a point where their only option is to throw good money after bad or back off and admit defeat.
 
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Why all the irrational hatred towards Steam?
At one time they were serious about banning cheaters. And when you were banned you lost everything multiplayer in your account. Publishers don't want to scare off cheaters by using serious anti-cheat and in fact at worse will game ban you to get you to buy a new Key. Its why games will never be cheat free. As much as non-cheaters hate the cheaters, the cheaters hate not being able to cheat worse.
 
You do realize that Epic just bought the studio making it a defacto 1st party title, right?
It's the overall pattern of behavior that's getting on many peoples nerves and wearing patience real thin. All fueled by a goofy cartoon game that preys on kids with microtransactions -- I mean its the epitome of the MTX scourge, and ironic considering many of the same names I see defending Epic's busy practices have complained when other companies even hint at MTX's in their games.

And so now Epic is practically frantic to become relevant overnight and trying to take every shortcut, before the ass falls out of Fortnite and the gravy train dies when kids move on to the next hypewagon.
 
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It is the lack of innovation in and adoption of the Source Engine that is going to hurt them here. Epic is providing Unreal Engine to the developers for free, along with a royalty on sales for games using the engine. Unreal engine can be used on PC as well as consoles and mobile devices, which would definitely make things easier in the days of trying to be multiplatform.
Valve has Source 2 as their latest engine, but no one other than them seem to be using it. Cannot show it off when the only games using it seem to be a port, and a game that was widely panned.
While i do not like the tactics, as a developer it would be hard to choose someone who is going to take a higher % share of sales over someone who is going to take a lower % share of sales, plus if i use their debate-ably more modern engine, i get additional royalties.
Epic has leveraged their engine as a sales tactic. Valve has not.
You do realize that respawn uses the source engine in all of their games right? TF1, TF2, and Apex Legends. They license out the engine just like Unreal. It is old but its not dead. Valve needs to wake up from their slumber and return to what made them great. They need to get serious about their game development again. I think his HL2 fiasco scared Gabe into exile from developing.

On topic, this behavior from Epic is terrible and the customers loosing in this deal......the price is still the same but we are forced to get it from only one place.....and what happens when the competition is eliminated?
 
You do realize that respawn uses the source engine in all of their games right? TF1, TF2, and Apex Legends. They license out the engine just like Unreal. It is old but its not dead. Valve needs to wake up from their slumber and return to what made them great. They need to get serious about their game development again. I think his HL2 fiasco scared Gabe into exile from developing.

On topic, this behavior from Epic is terrible and the customers loosing in this deal......the price is still the same but we are forced to get it from only one place.....and what happens when the competition is eliminated?

No he didn't get scared he got drunk on the behemoth for many years that was steam. When you make that much bank what's the impetus to keep making games? I'm sure they had a few titles that didn't pan out but we would also be dishonest with ourselves if we didn't admit they have been on the down-slope games-wise for some time now. Look how bad Artifact cratered. Steam itself has been slack on updates until recently when discord put the boot in their ass.

And just to be clear I'm a fan of Valve and appreciate what they've done for us for all these years. I don't want to see them go down.
 
You do realize that respawn uses the source engine in all of their games right? TF1, TF2, and Apex Legends. They license out the engine just like Unreal. It is old but its not dead. Valve needs to wake up from their slumber and return to what made them great. They need to get serious about their game development again. I think his HL2 fiasco scared Gabe into exile from developing.

On topic, this behavior from Epic is terrible and the customers loosing in this deal......the price is still the same but we are forced to get it from only one place.....and what happens when the competition is eliminated?
That is Source, not Source 2. And as I mentioned, while source has been updated, it is still older and less "shiny" than UE4.
 
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